Five aims for education

Our May 2024 symposium was advertised in accordance with five principle targets for our programme. They effectively framed the kind of education we envisioned.

Deepen students’ relationship with humanities

First and foremost we want to better acquaint students with the rich literature of the past. By guiding them critically through a selection of core texts, we hope to foster an intrinsic motivation on the part of the student to pursue their own reading at home. A genuine interest in uncovering the great historical conversation is the basis for life-long enrichment. 

Encourage collaboration and debate as a primary learning medium

The socratic seminar is an ideal illustration of how collaboration better enables students to access the core ideas presented in each text. 

Practice critical thinking and articulating ideas through dialogue

The texts are not simply there to be absorbed. Students will learn to challenge core assumptions in order to better understand why there are disagreements on deep issues. Dialogue is especially formative in this regard because it has students challenge one another as they assimilate the text into their own understanding: they are challenged on the positions they take and in how they communicate them. 

Help students consider a more deeply rooted identity and purpose in the ideas and values that the humanities uniquely deliver

In the process of engaging critically with these texts, students will potentially discover new ways of thinking about the world and their place in it. This is an important dimension of liberal education which has no serious corrolate in many contemporary models of education. It involves questions about meaning and identity which cannot be answered by science. 

Understand the pitfalls of common ideologies that devalue truth, goodness, and beauty 

We want to take the opportunity to share with students some of the ways contemporary approaches to philosophy have taken a bad turn. The universities, it is known, are particularly saturated with these so-called critical methods, which tend to uncritically assert propositions regarding the nature of truth and beauty, as though these were fictions. 

Two questions

With these points in mind, we convened a group of eleven educators and academics in late May to discuss two questions regarding the value of a liberal education and what can be done to advance and support it in the UK. The discussion developed from two brief presentations on each  theme, with the aim of further clarifying the vision of the Foundation. 

What is the value of a liberal education?

For decades UK government policy has markedly subordinated the humanities to subjects relating to science, technology, engineering, and maths (STEM). They argue that the economic value of these subjects, which is obvious in the modern world, outstrips any value in the humanities. Supporters of the humanities have often, and naively, defended them along the following lines:  (a) they talk about ‘transferable skills’; (b) they point to data which complicates and in some cases inverts the rhetorical relationship between STEM and economic benefit. Whilst both approaches are not necessarily wrong, they arguably miss the point. ‘Transferable skills’ give no intrinsic justification for doing any specific humanities subject, whilst economic arguments, though relevant and persuasive in today’s culture, run contrary to our convition that the humanities would be worth pursuing even if they had no economic benefit. Wealth and career are not primary reasons for studying humanities, though there are real cases where these are additional benefits. 

With this in mind we put the question forward: What is the intrinsic good in the humanities, precisely? What arguments and misconceptions must we overcome to make this case? Naturally this led into a discussion of what kind of content sufficiently captures this and could form the substance of our curriculum. 

Modern education tends to value particulars at the expense of the whole. A liberal education offers a corrective to this in encouraging the pursuit of knowledge and understanding for their own sake; in recognising the complementarity of the humanities, arts, and sciences, and supporting communication and collaboration across disciplines; in prioritising immersion in the transcendentals (the good, the true, and the beautiful) over a certain reductive and dispassioned dissection which them unrelatable for students; and in fostering a community of learning through seminar-style teaching.

The socratic approach to education, which is question-lead, is broadly applicable and constitutes an attitude towards the world. It gets the students themselves wrestling with deep problems, rather than being presented with a set of answers to memorise. For this reason it is ideal for our approach to education, which stresses method over content.

Teaching subjects as a ‘history of ideas’ emerged as another important principle for our approach. There is a lot to be gained from studying how ideas have emerged as solutions to real problems. We could produce high-quality resources for teachers, but this would need tobe accompanied with training in the approach we want to take, which is holistic, question-led, concerned with wisdom.

Whilst community (i.e. a regular group of in-person seminars) would also be an important part of framing our approach to liberal education, there is a trade-off here with scalability. Online courses would give us a greater outreach.

Examination or assessment may detract from what we are trying to do, which is to enrich. With exams the concern becomes, not enrichment, but mastering this specific test; anything beyond the scope of the test is burdensome. Tests also add the imperative of ‘catching-up’ with missed work, which would not be so important for us. The participants expressed from their experience that these factors did not disincentivise attendance.

What can be done to promote it in the UK?

It is a great irony that this country, having originally brought it to life, should now have very nearly forgotten the idea of a liberal education. This presents the difficulty that, if people do not understand what they are missing, they are hardly likely to pine for it. In the United States the idea is still very much alive, and there one detects a substantial literary culture even in the throws of the so-called ‘culture wars’. What are we lacking in comparison? What practical steps can we take to revive liberal education here? How should our course be structured and delivered to best acquaint students with the best of liberal education? 

The task of describing and presenting our vision to students, teachers, and parents faces the immediate difficulty that such words as ‘liberal’, 'classical’, ‘trivium’, and ‘the good, true, and beautiful’, are susceptible to misunderstanding, be it because of the politicised climate or simply because the terms have become so abstract. More generally, it is something that can be difficult to ‘sell’ unless it is experienced.

Some of these difficulties are more apparent in the US where, although liberal education is doing very well, it is much more politicised. We have a unique opportunity to revise the way the idea of a liberal education is presented.

We can, for instance, centralise the notions of wisdom, practical philosophy, enculturation, immersion, and holism. For a liberal education is principally an intellectual formation which teaches students to discern the substance or value proper to all things, a disposition which could be identified with wisdom. Wisdom offers ‘an understanding of the whole of reality’ (Thomistic Institute). This kind of appreciation is not ‘taught’ so as much as it grows out of consistent exposure to what is good, true, and beautiful.

Two feasible projects for TMF

From the above, two feasible projects emerged. The first would become Eudaemonia. The second is still under investigation.

1. A Sixth-Form core course

Roy Peachey shared details of the course he has designed for Year 12s at Woldingham School. It revolves around weekly seminars discussing a wide range of texts. We determined that it would be straightforward to adapt this for the PACT Sixth forms, with which many of the educators present were affiliated. We also noted the possibility of accreditation through a partnership between UNIR and St Mary’s University College, Twickenham.

2. A postgraduate certificate

A distance course in the ‘Great Works’ taken over a year. This would consist of a series of texts and alternative media (art, film, etc.), providing a multidisciplinary survey of the history of ideas. The course would be designed to equip teachers with the philosophical tools and knowledge base to provide high-quality intellectual formation for the challenges that beset us today. A virtual courses of this kind has previously been built by the head of Fundación Parentes, Miguel Arrufat. More broadly, they are enjoying much success in the US (e.g. Hillsdale College, Peterson Academy) and in Europe (e.g. Landmerk). They are valued for their reach and the ease with which students can be connected to the best resources and the brightest minds across the globe. As we continue to bring academics and educators on board with the Foundation, we shall have a considerable pool of intellectual resources to draw upon when producing the content for this certificate.